Dan James says he is raring to return to action for Fulham this weekend after representing Wales at the World Cup over the last few weeks.

Marco Silva’s side take on West Ham United in a friendly at Craven Cottage on Saturday as the Whites prepare for the return of the Premier League on Boxing Day – when they travel to Selhurst Park to take on Craven Cottage. The winger, on loan for Leeds United, can’t wait for the resumption of the domestic season, having got off the mark for his new club in Fulham’s last outing: a last gasp defeat at the hands of Manchester United last month.

James told FFCTV this afternoon:

“Of course, I’m super ready. We’ve been back a week now and we can’t wait to get started again. I think the Christmas period is always so busy. As soon as the games start, you know they’ll be coming every three or four days, so we’ve got to be ready for that.”

The Welsh international says he hasn’t found returning from the winter World Cup too troublesome and believes playing in the tournament will actually help with his fitness during a busy festive programme.

“The adjustment is okay. It maybe took me three or four days to get used to the cold after Qatar! Having been away, you get a little bit less days off but it is not always bad because you keep the levels of fitness up. I’m still feeling great. I had a week off which was nice – but a week’s enough, you don’t really lose your energy levels, and I’m looking forward to the games starting again.”

James insists he wants to build on Fulham’s fine start to the season – and won’t settle for remaining out of the relegation dog fight.

We expect more of ourselves as well. There’s been games where we felt like we could have gone on to do more, like the United game. So we’re just got to keep pushing. Keeping in that top half of the table is always good – and that’s obviously a goal for us.